


37 Price Street

by DSBooth



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fiction, Original Fiction, Scary, scary story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 19:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19708198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DSBooth/pseuds/DSBooth
Summary: Three teenagers get more than they bargained for when they go out just looking to have some fun in a small Southern town.





	37 Price Street

At nearly two in the morning, the streets were completely dead. The only sounds to be heard were our worn, tattered sneakers hitting the pavement, and Bryce giving the occasional direction. It was a typical summer night in the deep South. That day had been sweltering, with temperatures over one hundred if you added in the heat index. So, after nightfall, the asphalt remained hot, and I could feel the heat radiating through the soles of my sneakers. The air around us was hot and sticky with humidity, causing all three of us to break a sweat within five minutes of walking out the front door. The destination was only a ten minute walk, and as we turned the corner on to Price Street, my hair was soaked and sticking to my forehead. Not very many street lights remained on, considering most the houses were abandoned, no one lived there to pay the bill every month to keep them on. We saw the occasional bug fly through an illuminated portion of the street, but other than that it was completely dead silent.  
Most nights, this was what teenagers in my town did for fun. And as long as nobody was causing trouble, anyone that caught someone out this late would just leave them be. But tonight, Bryce was out for trouble, and from the minute I agreed to tag along I regretted it.   
Bryce had been going on and on about where we were going, and I was halfway paying attention. I was too busy worrying about if I was sweating too much or if I was starting to smell. See, the third guy out with us, Kevin, was a good friend of mine going back years, and lately, I’d had conflicting feelings about our relationship. I was starting to feel things that I’d never felt before, especially about another boy, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with it. But when I’d gotten a text from Bryce that the two of them were going to be out tonight, I jumped at the chance to possibly get some one on one time with Kevin. Little did I know what Bryce had planned, and as we approached 37 Price Drive, a small part of me said to turn around and go home, but as I looked towards Kevin, who had an astonished look on his face, almost as if he was excited to go into this house, I decided to stay.  
There was a long history behind this old semi-plantation style house. Of course, like any historic Southern town you have your ghost stories, but what happened in this house was much more sinister. I was way too young to remember, as were both Bryce and Kevin, but we’d all heard versions of the story from our older siblings who just wanted to scare us, and overheard our parents talking about it when they thought we weren’t listening. Bryce’s parents had actually been out on a casual walk with the family pet just after everything happened, just as the police were showing up and lining the perimeter of the house with that bright yellow caution tape and more cars were arriving to investigate and document everything inside.  
It was in the late nineties-I was probably still in diapers-and our small town actually had a very low crime rate. It was one of those towns were everyone new each other, and you couldn’t really get away with much without someone knowing about it. So when this new couple moved in, everybody in town was curious, but no one seemed to know anything about them, and that raised a lot of red flags with some of the elders and barflies. The most that they would tell anyone was that they were from the city, and moved out here to get a “fresh start”.   
When the house was kept up, it was beautiful, and underneath all the aging and destruction I could see the frame of what at one time was a gorgeous house. It was two stories high, and rumored to have a full basement. The once crisp white siding was a dark color, and the siding was starting to crack and break off in places. Bryce was the first to move, taking a step up the three rotted stairs to the wrap around porch covered in trash and leaves. It was a known party spot in town, often being raided by police for the parties thrown there. There used to be furniture on the porch, but that was long gone—stolen after the house was abandoned. As Bryce moved to the door, I shot a hesitant look to Kevin, who got a sympathetic look in his eyes.  
“You know we can shut this down and go home if you want to,” he said calmly. Almost immediately I could see the disappointment in his eyes at the idea of not being able to see the inside of this infamous house.  
I shook my head. “No. I’m alright, I just need to get out of my head.”  
I stepped forward onto the first step, feeling the wood give under my weight and give off an eerie creak. I gave just another fraction of a second of hesitation before jumping up the other two steps and joined Bryce at the front door, feeling Kevin step up behind me. I took a deep breath, and Bryce pushed the door open. I don’t know about the other two, but I immediately heard noises coming from upstairs in the house.  
The old wooden door hung crooked and from being kicked in so many times didn’t latch right, so it swung wide open. The paint and wood was so chipped and splintered that I worried I’d get a splinter if I even walked to close to it.  
As we stepped in, we noticed small signs that a family lived here at one point. The couple that lived here were around middle-aged, and never spoke about having any kids. They were quiet for the most part, and kept to themselves, rarely ever speaking to any of the neighbors other than to borrow the occasional egg or cup of milk. They did their part to keep up the outside of the home, but no one knew what happened on the inside.  
Multiple times for unknown reasons, police were called to the house, often leaving as quickly as they showed up, and the couple would never speak of the instances they were there, just saying, “Oh, it’s being taken care of it’s nothing to worry about.” Most people who had contact with the couple suspected abuse, but never noticed any telltale signs, and they seemed very happy, so people in town left them alone.  
But what no one knew about the couple, was that they had a son—Jasper. Growing up, he had some behavioral problems, but nothing that would set off any warnings with anyone. He was your typical teenage punk. Graffiti, cutting school, sneaking out of the house to—well do exactly what we were doing. When he turned eighteen, he moved out without warning, and without telling his parents were he was going. Mom was distraught, heartbroken over losing her only son. Dad on the other hand, seemed unphased, and soon enough everyone would find out why.   
About three years after the couple moved in, the neighbors were disturbed around dinnertime by red and blue flashing lights coming from the direction of this old house. The men of the house of course went to see what was happening, but no one was being told anything until the police could get in and figure out what was going on. This was the first time the door was kicked in, as police knocked and knocked but no one answered the door. The neighbors said that they were in the house for less than a minute before they ran back out the door, signaling for the neighbors to move back, and immediately calling for backup. More officer cars showed up, then sleek black detective cars, an ambulance, and eventually the coroner’s van. More and more people gathered around the house waiting for any kind of information from the police, or another neighbor, but no one was talking. The police were waiting on more information before making a statement, and of course none of the neighbors knew anything, but that didn’t stop any speculating.  
Some said it was the husband, who killed the wife, then himself. Others said it was a break-in gone wrong, but every speculation of the story was far from the truth. When the official statement was released, it sent shockwaves through our tiny town.  
The reason Jasper moved out—the reason the couple moved to our town to begin with—was that he’d begun to get violent with his mother, screaming at her and even escalating to hitting her, and his dad immediately told him to leave. He didn’t care where he went, but he couldn’t stay there anymore. It was then that Jasper threatened to return, and kill both of them, and that cold November night, he came through on his promise.   
Late the night before he came to the house, finding an open window and crawling in. This part gets a little fuzzy because no one knows what actually happened, but some say he stayed in the house for a while, had something to eat, and even slept on the couch for a bit, before making his way up to his parents’ bedroom. I’ll spare the details, but he brutally murdered his father first, presumably so there wouldn’t be a fight, then killed his mother, and immediately left the house. Later that day when the mother didn’t show up for her shift at the local diner, her manger sent the police to do a well check, and that was when everything was found.  
Police searched, but never found Jasper. They only knew it was him because the murder weapon had his initials engraved in it. It was a gift from his father for his sixteenth birthday. They never found him.  
Nearly twenty years later, as we stood in the front room of this house, chills went down my spine. Bryce was like a kid in a candy store, running from room to room, and the floor was so rotted out I was sure he would just fall through. Kevin and I stood in the middle, carefully looking around us. Most of the large furniture was stolen, but a few things remained. A table, a couple of dining chairs tossed over the room, and I could see a few things in the kitchen and the staircase leading upstairs with the flashlight on our phones. Just as Bryce called “Hey guys, come check this out!” I heard a thump come from above me.   
I flinched, instinctively drawing closer to Kevin, then realizing what I was doing stepped back into place. “What was that?” I squeaked.  
“Relax, it’s an old house. Old houses make noise.”  
I followed Kevin as he took off towards the sound of Bryce’s voice. I could swear that with each step I took, it was matched with a creak coming from above my heard. Bryce was standing in the kitchen, right next to the island with his phone pointed towards the stippled ceiling. What used to be white was now a dingy brown, with one large spot in the middle of the room a sickening darker color. Bryce didn’t have to say the next words he did, we all knew what it was, but in true Bryce fashion he had to blurt out, “That has to be blood!”  
The words barely left his mouth before an even louder crash came from the room above us, and before I could say anything, my legs were taking me through the front room and right out the door, down the steps, and out to the street. I could hear Bryce laughing, then an “Ow!” as Kevin presumably punched him.   
I paced back and forth in the driveway, torn between going back in or just staying outside waiting on them to come back out. It was nearly four in the morning at this point, and I was sure they’d get tired soon. As I turned on my heel and started back in, I glanced up and froze. My heart stopped, and my breath caught in my throat. On the second floor, in what I assume was one of the bedrooms, was the clear outline of a man’s face. His hair was disheveled, and it looked like he hadn’t bathed in years. The cold look in his eyes pierced right through me, and I tried as hard as I could to scream, to let Kevin and Bryce know to get out, but I just couldn’t get the words out.  
As quickly as it appeared, the face disappeared, and I heard steps. They went across he second floor, down the stairs, and I heard screams as the man entered the kitchen. Thankfully, Kevin ran outside first, followed by Bryce when he realized this wasn’t a prank.   
“I-I-I’m sorry, I tried to warn you but—”  
Kevin grabbed my shoulders, spun me towards home, and pushed. “That doesn’t matter now just move he’s got a weapon!”  
None of us were very athletic, but we sprinted home like we’d been running for years, and we didn’t turn back to see if anyone was following us. That ten minute journey felt twice as long. Back at Bryce’s, between trying to catch my breath, I said, “We have to call the police.”  
“Are you insane?” he said, collapsing on his bed, “We’ll get in so much trouble!”  
“He’s right,” Kevin spoke up from the corner, “We need to tell someone or there’ll be a lot of people in trouble if that psycho gets out.”  
After a bit of back and forth, we finally convinced Bryce to wake his parents, and once they saw how scared we were—I was nearly in tears myself—they called the police, and we met them at the house.   
You could tell the officers weren’t happy about being at this house, but they went in anyway. They searched the bottom floor, calling out to anyone who might be there, then they moved upstairs, and we saw their flashlights shining around the room where I first noticed the man. All of a sudden, we heard one of the officers yell, “Freeze!”  
There was a fight, and the flashlights were thrown. Bryce’s parents pushed the three of us behind them as they saw what was happening.   
The two officers were wrestling their way out the door with someone between them. He was huge, and I’m not sure how Kevin and Bryce got away from him. He looked even worse than I originally realized. His long, dark hair was matted around his face, and his beard grown out to about the same length. His clothes were filthy, and we could smell how long it had been since he’d last bathed as the police brought him past us and shoved him into the back of their car. I was hidden between Bryce’s parents, but as they moved past, I looked up and locked eyes with him again. It was like what I imagine looking into a true monster’s eyes would be like. His ice blue eyes locked to mine and my blood ran cold. The only thing that pulled me out of it was Kevin’s hand on my shoulder.  
Our parents were called, and after a lot of begging agreed to let the three of us stay together for the night. Eventually, a huge crowd drew around the house, including news crews. Our parents were careful over the next few days keeping us away from the media. None of us could really sleep, and even Bryce was waking up with night terrors when he did. But when we went back to school, even our parents couldn’t protect us from everyone talking, and we eventually did find out what was going on in that house.  
He was living in the attic, and the police found the drop door in the bedroom closet where he’d been getting up and down. No one knows how long he was living there, or how he was sustaining himself, but they suspect he’d been there for years.  
The three of us reacted differently when we heard the news. Bryce just went silent, I threw up, and Kevin actually passed out.  
The guy who was living in the house, and could have possibly killed myself and my two friends—was Jasper.


End file.
